The Turing Test was proposed by Alan Turing in 1950; he called it the Imitation Game. In 1991 Hugh Loebner started the Loebner Prize competition, offering a $100,000 prize to the author of the first computer program to pass an unrestricted Turing test. Annual competitions are held each year with smaller prizes for the best program on a restricted Turing test.

This paper describes the development of one such Turing System, including the technical design of the program and its performance on the first three Loebner Prize competitions. We also discuss the program's four year development effort, which has depended heavily on constant interaction with people on the Internet via Tinymuds (multiuser network communication servers that are a cross between role-playing games and computer forums like CompuServe).

Finally, we discuss the design of the Loebner competition itself, and address its usefulness in furthering the development of Artificial Intelligence.

Sort of a long computer science paper, but I like its discussion of some of the 'tricks' programmers use to make their 'bots seem more humanlike:
* ELIZA uses lots of questions to draw the user into talking and makes no declarative statements, so it can't contradict itself later.
* PARRY simulates a paranoid human, and tells various stories about the mafia, to trick humans into thinking it is a real person
* CHATTERBOT breaks a large conversation into small fragments so it can advance a conversation, and it includes humorous statements to seem more human